732 N.Y.S.2d 415 | N.Y. App. Div. | 2001
—Appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Queens County (Blackburne, J.), rendered April 6, 2000, convicting him of criminal possession of stolen property in the third degree, criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in the third degree, upon a jury verdict, and imposing sentence. The appeal brings up for review the denial, after a hearing (Rotker, J.), of that branch of the defendant’s omnibus motion which was to suppress his statements to law enforcement authorities.
Ordered that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and a new trial is ordered.
We disapprove of the Supreme Court’s interested-witness charge, as it departed from the Criminal Jury Instructions on this subject and engrafted a concept that the defendant is “the most” interested witness.
There is no merit to the defendant’s contention that the hearing court erred in denying that branch of his omnibus motion which was to suppress his statements to law enforcement authorities.
In view of our determination that a new trial is required, we do not reach the defendant’s remaining contentions. Goldstein, J. P., McGinity, Luciano and Crane, JJ., concur.